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quantities; the leases to provide for 12% percent royalty, for minimum rentals of $1 per acre per annum, and require operations to be conducted in accordance with sound and efficient oil field practices. No extension of the primary term of the lease should be permitted except that if a well is commenced more than 6 months before the end of the primary term, the lease should continue in effect in the absence of production as long as operations on such well are diligently prosecuted and as long thereafter as there is production from the lease in paying quantities.

3. That State lessees should be authorized to continue to pay rents, royalties, and other sums under the State's leases unless and until it is determined by final judgment by a court of competent jurisdiction that such rents, royalties, or other sums should be paid otherwise.

4. That Texas should receive a quitclaim to the land beneath all of its inland waters.

5. That whether or not the State is successful in establishing in the courts its claim to ownership of the lands and minerals within its original boundaries, neither she nor her grantees or lessees should be liable to or required to account to the United States in any way for operations conducted on or natural resources produced from any submerged coastal lands prior to the effective date of the act.

6. All rights to construct, maintain, and use docks, wharves, jetties, and other structures heretofore granted in the submerged coastal lands by the State, its political subdivisions, or municipalities should be confirmed and they should be authorized to grant such rights in the future in accordance with State law; it is further

Resolved, That the Board express its appreciation to Hon. Sam Rayburn for his untiring efforts in attempting to work out a satisfactory solution of the problem, and that it expresses confidence that he and the other members of the Texas delegation in Congress will continue to use their best efforts to protect the interests of the State of Texas in this controversy.

Mr. DANIEL. If H. R. 5991 came to me as a Member of the United States Congress, I think I would feel the same way about this. I could support the bill with one of the amendments just outlined here— preferably the one covering all the coastal States and recognizing what they have claimed and used all these years, and I do believe that that would permanently settle the problem and take out all these issues of where low tide is and all, and where your shore is going to begin. You have not had those problems in the last hundred years because there has been no need for demarking lands under the seas within the States' original boundaries.

I would like to point out one further thing about Texas and its special provisions: The United States Government has never conveyed to Texas any lands for common school purposes, but if you will take the other 16 Western States, you will find that the United States Congress has conveyed those States a total of 56,487,744 acres of land for common school purposes. Some of the States received as high as 8,000,000 acres. In our original boundaries in the marginal belt, there is only approximately 3,000,000 acres of land. If the Supreme Court did decide we did not own that land after all this long period of time and they said our annexation agreement just did not cover it and they said it was Federal property, but you passed this bill, you would not be giving the State of Texas any more land for school purposes than the United States Congress has given most of the Western States for school purposes. You will see here the list. I want to introduce that. It is a report of the Department of Commerce, 1948.

Mr. FEIGHAN (presiding). Without objection, it will appear in the record at this point.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

[From Statistical Abstract of the United States, prepared by U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1948 edition]

No. 187.-Public land, homestead entries-Acreage for United States, 1868-1947, and by States, 1921–47, for years ending June 30

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Source: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management; Annual Report of the Secretary and Annual Report of the Director.

98382-49-7

No. 188.-Land grants (including scrip) to States for educational and other purposes-Acreage, by States and for Alaska, to June 30, 1947

[Excludes data for grants to States for railroads, desert land reclamation, wagon roads, river improvements,

and canals]

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1 Includes acreage of grants for "educational and charitable" purposes as follows: Idaho, 150,000; North Dakota, 170,000; South Dakota, 170,000; Washington, 200,000. Includes also 669,000 acres granted to Oklahoma for "charitable, penal, and public building" purposes, and 290,000 acres granted to Wyoming for "charitable educational, penal, etc." purposes.

Source: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management; annual report of the Director.

Mr. DANIEL. You will see that every one of the 17 States to the west except Texas was conveyed vast areas of land for school purposes. I think that is an interpretation by the Congress. The reason they did not convey Texas any land was because they interpreted we kept all of ours and therefore they did not need to convey us anything. We were in a different position. We think that position should be maintained. Not come along now and take away the land

which we all thought we had and which served as the reason for our not being conveyed any public lands for school purposes.

If H. R. 5991 is so amended, I believe it will have the support of all the States and that it will do justice and equity to the States. Above all it will protect the principles involved in this dispute. It will stop expensive and useless Federal suits against the 28 coastal and Great Lakes States and save the revenues so badly needed for our units of government. Otherwise, I cannot see how the Department of Justice is going to get around filing suit against these other States, though they have not done it now. So far they have only discriminated against Texas, Louisiana, and California. I am wondering, and I hope this committee will ask those appearing before the committee for the Department of Justice, why they have not sued the other coastal States and the Great Lakes States, because, now it appears they are claiming, as the Supreme Court has said, that the Great Lakes are open seas, too.

Why have they not filed suits and why do they not do otherwise than discriminate just against these three States. It cannot be because we are the only ones collecting revenues. We are the only ones who have oil production right now, but the other States, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, and Washington are collecting revenues from leases they have made on the land. Maine is collecting more from kelp leases in the marginal seas than Texas is getting from oil leases, today. Why have not Maine, Rhode Island, and some of these other States been sued because they are collecting revenues from those areas-true, from a different natural resource, but it is not treating the three States I have named to you fairly for the Department of Justice to center their suits only on we three. I have an idea why they are doing it. They might feel that if the States are all awakened to this, that the Congress will take action so fast that they will override the Presidential veto. But they should not be allowed to play politics on this thing, they should not be allowed to discriminate against these three States any longer. If any of the members of this committee feel that way about it, I hope you will ask them why they have not proceeded and treated all the coastal States and Great Lakes States alike in this whole affair. I know that the Federal Government would like to have the land. They cut the Great Lakes out of their bill, you know, out of inland waters. They would like to have the land.

According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, sixtyninth edition, 1948, compiled by the Department of Commerce, the Federal Government today already owns 24 percent of all the land within the continental United States, a total of 455,183,000 acres.

It owns over half the lands within six States and as high as 87 percent of the land in one State. Not satisfied with this area so large that it cannot properly develop and manage it without Elk Hills and Teapot Domes, it seeks to grab 16,000,000 acres of submerged land from States which can ill afford to lose the revenues for local needs. This trend to Federal ownership and nationalization of the lands and mineral resources of the Nation should be stopped now before the States, through loss of revenues therefrom, become wholly dependent on the Central Government. A good place to stop the trend is by leaving the States with title to the submerged lands within their boundaries, for here they have far excelled the Federal Government in

efficient management, public use, and proper development. They have made oil and other resources from these lands available for two World Wars and their foresight and initiative should be rewarded rather than used as the signal for Federal seizure.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Are there any questions? Thank you very much.

Mr. HowSER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce Mr. Mattoon, who is Assistant Attorney General of California who has a short oral statement amplifying the points I touched on this morning, if that is agreeable with the committee.

Mr. FEIGHAN (presiding). The committee will hear Mr. Mattoon. FURTHER STATEMENT OF E. W. MATTOON, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. MATTOON. It has just occurred to us that something could probably be said at this stage concerning the proceedings which are now pending in connection with the case of the United States against California. It involves a reference by the Supreme Court to a special master of the task of establishing the lands described by the Supreme Court as "inland-water," but did not define, nor has any decision or any action by Congress or any Department of the Government defined it. Now in this connection-and this has gone on ever since the decision in the main case on June 23, 1947-this reference has undertaken to define or to ascertain and determine what these lands are.

We find ourselves in this position: California had presented from its 1,100 miles of coast line, 104 indentations along the coast in which there is utter chaos as to title, ownership, use, development, expenditure of funds, and enjoyment of the proceeds of past expenditures. From that total of 104 we have selected 6 segments in addition to the 3 which the Federal Government suggested in its petition for a supplemental degree defining these lines, in each 1 of the 3 there being only one thing concerned and that, the production of oil. California is not primarily interested in oil. We have in our State a budget of $1,000,000,000. That is an annual budget. Our revenue from oil royalty from State-owned-as we have always been led to believe-lands, off shores, amounts to $4,000,000 or $5,000,000. We have impounded under our pending stipulation only $18,000,000. It is small, compared with the revenues and demands made by the people of California from its government.

Now the Government asks that only these three limited segments be determined and their lines set forth as to where the inland waters are. You saw an example of that presented by the attorney general this morning, the attorney general of California. Out of those segments we have selected out of the 104, 6 segments and they are typical in every way of bays and of harbors and of ports along our coast. And last week we received a brief from the Federal Government in which it took this definite position, that not one of those bays could be recognized; that the Federal Government claimed and insisted upon a line being drawn inside Monterey Bay. If there ever was a historic bay in the history of this Nation, I think Monterey Bay would be that. The line is hugging the coastline-not from headland to headland-denying any semblance of the port of refuge which God has provided for navigation, commerce, and development.

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